Henry Poole is Here movie review (2008)

Wilson plays Henry as hostile and depressed. Well, he has much to be depressed about. "We hardly ever see this disease in the States," the doctor tells him. "It steamrolls through your system." Patience (Rachel Seiferth), the nearly blind checkout girl at the supermarket, gives him dietary hints when she notices he buys mostly vodka and frozen pizza. Although her glasses are half an inch thick, she's observant: "Why are you sad and angry all the time?"

Henry starts hearing voices in his backyard. There is a rational reason for this. He is being secretly recorded by Millie (Morgan Lily), the 5-year-old who lives next door on the other side from Esperanza. Millie's mother is the lovely Dawn (Radha Mitchell), who apologizes for her daughter, brings cookies, also notices how sad and angry Henry is. He is especially angry with Esperanza, warning her to stay out of his yard and stop praying to his bad stucco job. But she has seen Jesus, and cannot be stopped. She brings in Father Salazar (George Lopez), who explains that the church does not easily declare miracles, but keeps an open mind.

There are more details, which I must not reveal, including certain properties of the wall. I will observe that the director, Mark Pellington, uses some of the most subtle special effects you've probably seen for some time, to fine-tune the illusion that the face of Christ is really there, or really not there. I will now think of this movie every time I drive through the Fullerton Avenue underpass of the Kennedy Exp., where since April 2005, people have said they can see the Virgin Mary in a wall stain.

The thing is, certain miraculous events take place, and the people involved believe it is because they touched Henry's wall. Patience the checkout girl even quotes the formidable intellectual Noam Chomsky, who, she informs Henry, said some things cannot be explained by science. One critic of this film believes it is anti-science and pounds you over the head to believe. Not at all. It is simply that Chomsky is right, as any scientist will tell you. What do I believe? I believe science can eventually explain everything, but only if it gets a whole lot better than it is now and discovers realms we do not even suspect. You could call such a realm God. You could, of course, call it anything you wanted; it wouldn't matter to the realm.